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Abba no angry word replied,
She only raised her eyes and cried,
Let not the Lady Argentine
Be wroth at ministry of mine!

She looked at Aymerique and sighed.
My father will not frown, I ween,

That Abba again at his board should be seen!
Then Aymerique raised her from her knee,
And kissed her eyes, and bade her be
The daughter she was wont to be.

The wine hath warm'd Count Aymerique,.
That mood his crafty daughter knew;
She came and kiss'd her father's cheek,
And stroked his beard with gentle hand,
And winning eye and action bland,
As she in childhood used to do.
A boon! Count Aymerique, quoth she;
If I have found favour in thy sight,
Let me sleep at my father's feet to-night.
Grant this, quoth she, and so I shall see
That you will let your Abba be
The daughter she was wont to be.
With asking eye did Abba speak,
Her voice was soft and sweet;
The wine had warm'd Count Aymerique,
And when the hour of rest was come,
She lay at her father's feet.

In Aymerique's arms the Leman lay,
Their talk was of the distant day,
How they from Garci fled away
In the silent hour of night;
And then amid their wanton play
They mock'd the beautiful Knight.
Far, far away his castle lay,
The weary road of many a day,
And travel long, they said, to him
It seemed was small delight,
And he belike was loth with blood
To stain his hands so white.
They little thought that Garci then
Heard every scornful word,
They little thought the avenging hand
Was on the avenging sword.
Fearless, unpenitent, unblest,
Without a prayer, they sunk to rest,
The adulterer on the Leman's breast.

Then Abba, listening still in fear,
To hear the breathing long and slow,
At length the appointed signal gave,
And Garci rose and struck the blow.
One blow sufficed for Aymerique, ..
He made no moan, he gave no groan,
But his death-start wakened Argentine,
And by the chamber-lamp she saw
The bloody falchion shine.

She raised for help her in-drawn breath,
But her shriek of fear was her shriek of death.

In an evil day and an hour of woe
Did Garci Ferrandez wed!

One wicked wife has he sent to her grave,
He has taken a worse to his bed.

VERSES

SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE AT OXFORD UPON THE INSTALLATION OF LORD GRENVILLE.-R. SOUTHEY.

GRENVILLE, few years have had their course, since last
Exulting Oxford view'd a spectacle

Like this day's pomp; and yet to those who throng'd
These walls, which echoed then with Portland's praise,
What change hath interven❜d! The bloom of spring
Is fled from many a cheek, where roseate joy
And beauty bloom'd; the inexorable grave
Hath claim'd its portion, and the band of youths,
Who then, collected here as in the port

From whence to launch on life's adventurous sea,
Stood on the beach, ere this have found their lots
Of good or evil. Thus the lapse of years,

Evolving all things in its quiet course,

Hath wrought for them; and though those years have seen
Fearful vicissitudes, of wilder change

Than history yet had learnt, or old romance

In wildest mood imagined, yet these, too,
Portentous as they seem, not less have risen,
Each of its natural cause the sure effect,

All righteously ordain'd. Lo, kingdoms wreck'd,
Thrones overturn'd, built up, then swept away

VOL. II. PART II.

2 s

Like fabrics in the summer clouds, dispersed

By the same breath that heap'd them; rightful kings,
Who, from a line of long-drawn ancestry
Held the transmitted sceptre, to the axe
Bowing the anointed head, or dragg'd away
To eat the bread of bondage, or escaped
Beneath the shadow of Britannia's shield,
There only safe. Such fate have vicious courts,
Statesmen corrupt, and fear-struck policy,
Upon themselves drawn down; till Europe, bound
In iron chains, her wounds still bleeding, groans
Beneath the yoke of upstart tyranny,
Save where the heroic Spaniard, he alone
Yet unsubdu'd in these degenerate days,
Recalls Saguntum and Numantia's deeds.
So may the Almighty bless the noble race,
And crown with happy end their holiest cause!
Deem not these dread events the monstrous birth
Of chance! And thou, O England, who dost ride
Serene amid the waters of the flood,
Preserving, even like the ark of old,
Amid the general wreck, thy purer faith,
Domestic loves, and ancient liberty,
Look to thyself, O England! for be sure,
Even to the measure of thine own desert,
The cup of retribution to thy lips

Shall soon or late be dealt !—a thought that well
Might fill the stoutest heart of all thy sons
With awful doubt! And, therefore, they who fear
The justice of the Eternal, bless thy name,
Grenville, because the wrongs of Africa
Cry out no more to draw a curse from heaven
Upon us; for if still the trooping sharks
Track by the scent of death the accursed ship
Freighted with human anguish, in her wake
Pursue the chace, crowd round her keel, and dart
Toward the sound contending, when they hear
The frequent carcase from her guilty deck
Dash in the opening deep, not thine the guilt,
My country and if some of them, even yet,
Mocking thy late repentance, set at nought
Thy laws and God's own word, upon themselves
Their sin be visited!-the Red-cross flag,
Redeem'd from stain so foul, no longer now
Covereth the abomination.

This thy praise,
O Grenville, and while ages roll away

This shall be thy remembrance. Yea, when all

For which the tyrant of these abject times
Hath given his honourable name on earth,
His nights of innocent sleep, his hopes of heaven;
When all his triumphs and his deeds of blood,
The fretful changes of his feverish pride;
His midnight murders and perfidious plots,
Are but a tale of years so long gone by,
That they who read distrust the hideous truth,
Willing to let a charitable doubt

Abate their horror; Grenville, even then
Thy memory will be fresh among mankind;
Afric with all her tongues will speak of thee,
With Wilberforce and Clarkson, he whom heaven,
To be the apostle of this holy work,

Rais'd up and strengthen'd, and upheld through all
His arduous toil. To end the glorious task,
That blessed, that redeeming deed was thine:
Be it thy pride in life, thy thought in death,
Thy praise beyond the tomb. The statesman's fame
Will fade, the conqueror's laurel crown grow sear,
Fame's loudest trump upon the ear of time

Leaves but a dying echo. They alone

Are held in everlasting memory,

Whose deeds partake of heaven.

Long ages hence,

Nations unborn, in cities that shall rise

Along the palmy coast, will bless thy name;
And Senegal and secret Niger's shore,

And Calabar, no longer startled then
With sounds of murder, will, like Isis now,

Ring with the songs that tell of Grenville's praise.

Ball, Col.

EPITAPH

·Designed for a Monument to be erected in Lichfield Cathedral, agreeably to the Bequest of the late Miss Anna Seward, to designate the Burial Place of her Father, the Rev. Thomas Seward, a Canon of that Cathedral, in which she is herself interred.

BY WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

AMID these aisles, where once his precepts show'd
The heaven-ward pathway which in life he trod,
This simple tablet marks a father's bier,

And those he loved in life, in death are near;

For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise,
Memorial of domestic charities.

Still wouldst thou know why o'er the marble spread,
In female grace, the willow droops her head;.
Why on her branches, silent and unstrung,
The minstrel harp is emblematic hung;
What poet's voice is smother'd here in dust,
Till waked to join the anthems of the just,—
Lo, one brief line an answer sad supplies,
Honour'd, beloved, and wept, here SEWARD lies!
Her worth, her warmth of heart, let friendship say,
Go seek her genius in her living lay.

FRAGMENT,

WRITTEN IN GLENFINLAS,

It is hardly possible to live, even for a short period, in the highlands of Scotland, without hearing related some of the many traditionary anecdotes, which are yet float ing through the country, and are one distinguishing characteristic of the pastoral life. Some legendary tales, repeated by a shepherd in Glenfinlas, suggested the following lines, which were written nearly extempore. It is earnestly to be wished, that a man of taste and industry could be discovered, who might be induced to devote a few years to the prosecution of literary and poetical research in the more remote regions of this romantic country. In the neighbourhood of Dunstaffnage Castle, and in several of the Western Isles, traditions are probably yet remaining regarding the life of King Robert I., which might prove highly interesting to the historian as well as to the poet. This is mentioned only as one instance of the many advantages which might perhaps be gleaned, but which in a few years more will be wholly lost, in consequence of the change of national character, ari sing from the increase of civilization, and from various other causes.

I.

THAT restless fire was in my breast,
Which haunts my path in solitude;
Up the grey mountain's side I prest,
To seek the cavern's shelter rude.

I twined the heathbell's lingering flowers:-
The light which cheers my lonely hours
Was glowing 'mid the autumnal wood,
And charmed the path of solitude.

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